


Led Off Course

by hollo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Planet, Gen, Keith is Impulsive, Rainforest, Wild Fyre Keith Zine 2018, creature - Freeform, fetch mission, pidge is pidgeriffic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 08:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17915057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollo/pseuds/hollo
Summary: - originally printed in the Wild Fyre Keith Zine 2018 -Impulsivity is just part of who Keith is - it's as much a part of him as breathing, or thinking. Or maybe that's not-thinking, because they're supposed to be looking for some rare ore within the depths of the rainforest they've landed in, not chasing a creature that he'd barely only glimpsed among the vine-covered tree trunks.But that's exactly what they end up doing.





	Led Off Course

**Author's Note:**

> Hey All!
> 
> I hope you enjoy the read. If you've gotten the Wild Fyre Keith Zine back in 2018 you've possibly read this already, and saw the absolutely AMAZING art [@gabriellemkari](https://twitter.com/gabriellemkari) created for it. 
> 
> Anyways, this was finished up in January 2018, so it's been a while. There's a bit of Arthurian legend twined within this story, just a little bit. :)

Keith couldn’t decide what was worse - the heat that surrounded them and seemed to radiate from the springy ground underfoot or the humidity that clogged the air around them until it felt like he was drinking the air rather than breathing it. Guardian of Fire he might have been, but Guardian of Humid Heat he most definitely was not. It was so bad they’d ended up taking their helmets off to get some relief, hanging them off latches at their hips to keep them close at hand. Grumbling to himself, he wiped a hand a hand across his forehead to brush back the hair that had plastered itself to his skin, and swung his sword at another patch of thick vines. 

“The recon images we’d taken show a generalized concentration of ore  _ somewhere _ in this forest,” Pidge said from a few paces behind him. “I wish the recon drones could’ve pinpointed the location better but the mass amounts of metallic veins running under the planet’s crust just wreak havoc on their sensors…”

Keith was trying to pay attention to what she was saying, but the dead honest truth was that he didn’t understand most of her technical jargon, and any time his brain didn’t understand it just shut itself off or turned its attention to something more interesting.

Like the scurrying creature traveling down the length of vine swinging in front of his face. It was bright green and blue, shaped a bit like an earth frog though it moved more fluidly. Its big, round, yellow eyes seemed to be capable of swiveling in all directions, and they spun wildly as he leaned closer, it’s progress halted. It gathered its legs under its body as he peered at it curiously, and then without warning launched itself at his face with a sound like a rattling rainstick. He jerked back with a surprised yelp, but the creature still managed to land on his face, tiny fingers sticking to his skin. He grimaced, leaning back as if that would somehow get him away from the creature. 

“What was that?” Pidge asked, finally looking up from the tablet in her hands. There was a second of silence as she took in the sight of Keith and his surprise guest, and then she burst out laughing, one hand pointing at his face. 

“It’s not that funny,” Keith grumbled, reaching up to try and detach the unwelcome visitor from his face. Pidge only laughed harder as the froggy creature’s legs stretched almost comically long while its feet remained firmly secured to Keith’s face. Brows furrowed, teeth gritted, Keith grabbed the creature with both hands and gave it another hard tug. It croaked in protest but its grabby fingers finally gave way with a pop. Depositing the creature on a nearby leaf, Keith shot a glare in Pidge’s direction.

She was still chuckling, saying something about telling the others, but just as Keith was about to respond he noticed movement in the trees behind her. 

The forest was brilliant with color - dark greens and lime greens and various shades of orange and purple and blue flowers and plants surrounded them at every turn. What had moved just beyond the closest line of trees and hanging vines, however, stood out starkly against the colors of the forest, a white so pure it was almost more a lack of color than anything else. It was only there a moment, however, and before Keith could move it was gone again, disappearing into the undergrowth.

“What?” Pidge asked, expression sobering as she caught the look on his face. “What’s going on?”

“I thought I saw something, over there,” Keith said, motioning towards the area with his sword. That fleeting shape intrigued him, and he headed towards the trees he’d seen it disappear behind. “I’m going to check it out.”

“Keith, we’re supposed to be looking for the ore,” Pidge said with a huff, lifting the tablet as if to show it to him. Keith spared a glance at the screen, long enough to see that despite the sensors picking up the ore’s signature they still couldn’t pinpoint it, and continued on through the undergrowth towards the trees.

“It’ll just take a minute, I just want to see what it was.”

Pidge groaned behind him, grumbling something he couldn’t quite make out. He pushed past the vines hanging off the nearest trees, trying to step around the plants at the base of it to avoid crushing anything. The fleeting glimpse he'd caught had moved somewhere to the right and deeper into the forest and he headed after it quickly. The going was rough; there might've been an old animal trail, but it was overgrown and obviously little used, vines hanging from overhead and creeping across the forest floor underfoot. Keith hacked away at them, trying to make the way easier, wondering how what he'd seen could move through the thick underbrush so quickly.

“Keith wait up! What if you get lost?” Pidge called out behind him, sounding grumpy and frustrated. 

“The suits have trackers, don't they?” Keith replied, shoving aside a curtain of vines to power through the gap. 

“That's not the point,” Pidge huffed, sounding much closer now. “We’re supposed to be looking for this ore together.”

Keith hesitated a little at that; he knew he could be a bit too impulsive, prone to rushing headfirst into things without waiting for the others. It was an issue he'd been trying to work on, realizing just how difficult it made it for the rest of his team when he struck out on his own and left them floundering - but there he was, doing it again, rushing off without explanation.

“Sorry,” he said shortly, coming to a stop and half turning back towards Pidge. “I just thought I saw something out there.”

“Saw  _ what _ out there?” She asked with a frown, though her tone was less frustrated than before. She stopped in front of him, eyes gazing curiously up at him as she waited for a response..

“Something white?” Keith shrugged, realizing that he hadn’t seen much at all, certainly not enough to describe properly. His gaze turned back towards the trees he’d been headed to, “It kind of stood out, was kind of big…”

His words trailed off as his eyes caught sight of movement ahead of him. There, stepping out from behind the mossy trunk of a massive tree directly in front of him was the creature - pure white, almost glowing, deer shaped in body and head with long, graceful legs and big ears that were perked towards them. It looked at them for a moment with its wide, dark eyes, standing so close Keith could clearly see its nose twitching.

“There! There it is!” 

Pidge jerked back away from his outstretched arm, head tilting to catch sight of whatever it was Keith was pointing at. She wasn't quick enough - the creature had bolted at Keith's voice, bounding over a large-leafed bush and out of sight among the trees, leaving no trace. Keith cursed inwardly - he should've known better than to cry out like that! - and without a thought gave chase dashing off after it again.

“Keith!” Pidge cried after him, sounding both frustrated and distressed. Keith hesitated a moment, glancing back over his shoulder to find that despite her protests she was following him, shoving her way past the vines and leaves almost as well as he was. It was slower going for her than for him, but if she followed the trail he broke...

Keith knew he should stop, even as he turned back around and headed into the forest - he knew that logically they should go back to the clearer trails and follow the barely-detectable trail of ore like they had planned to. There were things more important than creatures in alien forests, but there was something about  _ this _ creature that had taken hold of him, something about it that seemed so strange and out of place in the rainforest around them, that piqued his curiosity. And he couldn't deny that the way it was just out of reach, the way the flicker of white caught his eye just as it was disappearing behind a veil of vines or around the mossy trunk of a tree, woke some deep instinct inside of him to follow, to chase, to track down the animal that stayed so tantalizingly out of his reach.

So he headed on, heart pounding and breath rushing with the exertion, swiping his sword at vines and branches that blocked his way as he went. His blood was rushing but it was a  _ good _ rush, the thrill of a chase pushing him forward. He was catching up, he thought after a few long moments - he could see the back end of his quarry, snow white, puffed tail held high over its back as it trotted between the trees and plants. It moved swiftly, gait even and step sure, as if the surroundings didn't get in its way.

“What are you even following?” Pidge called from behind him.

“It's like...like a… a deer,” Keith called back, cutting through another curtain of vines.

And it was; or at least, that was the impression he'd gotten in the fleeting moments he'd seen it. Long legged, long nosed with those wide ears and large, soulful eyes. Even the rump he saw, that was quickly vanishing into a large clump of colorful large leaved plants several yards before him, was deer-like, down to the tail.

“A deer?” Pidge sounded bewildered, and maybe a little irritated. “An  _ Earth _ deer? You know that's not possible right? Earth deer are on Earth, there's no logical way you'd be seeing one in this forest - it's a completely alien environment! Not to mention we haven't even picked up any reaches of any sort of mammalian like creatures on here - everything looks more like, reptilian and amphibious if it's not a fish or some proto-bird-”

“I just said it  _ looked  _ like a deer, not that it  _ was _ one,” Keith snapped back defensively. Even though that was a lie - the creature was eerily similar to an Earth deer indeed, and he wasn’t sure he could describe it any other way. 

“Maybe you're just seeing things,” Pidge thought aloud, “Maybe that frog-looking thing secreted poison or something that causes hallucinations. Are you seeing anything else, weird colors? Are things getting blurry?”

“No,” Keith grunted, bodily shoving his way through the clumped of colorful leaves he'd seen the deer - the  _ deer-like animal  _ \- disappear through. “But I do keep hearing this really annoying voice.”

The bushes were thick, and it took a decent few ticks for Keith to get through them - but when he did he was greeted by the sight of a large animal not five feet from him. He pulled up short, angling his sword into a defensive position as he eyed the creature warily. It's body was long, trailing into the underbrush, and it's head was oddly feline shaped, like a massive black panther, only with three golden eyes set into the front of its face and knobby, scaly skin instead of fur. It's whole body was a dark brown, but lines and dashes like paint strokes ran across the top of it's head and down along its back, all colored in bright purple and blue and green hues. It lay on the ground, and even if he could only see the part of it that wasn't blocked by more leaves and vines be could tell that it was bigger than Pidge and him put together.

“Wow.” Pidge tuned in behind him, still in the midst of crunching her way through the bushes. “What a comeback. I'm hurt, really, that  _ stung _ .”

“Pidge, hold on,” Keith said, swinging out an arm to keep her back. She bumped into it as she took the last step out of the bush, shooting him an odd look.

Across from them, the creature opened it's impressively large maw and let out a sound Keith could only compare to the rumble of an alligator and the high hiss of an irritated cat. 

“What is  _ that _ !” Pidge jumped back, eyes widening at the sight of the creature, her bayard flashing into her hand as she held it out defensively.

The thing had sharp teeth, lots of them, laid out haphazardly all within the wide, gaping maw of its shockingly-fuschia colored mouth. It watched them, mouth-half open, for a long while, then suddenly lurched onto a multitude of short but strong looking legs, lunging towards them with surprising speed as it let out another loud rumble-hiss.

Keith pushed Pidge back into the bushes, his sword held high in anticipation of an attack, but the creature stopped several feet short, huffing with its mouth open, its teeth on full display. It’s golden eyes rolled, odd star-shaped pupils widened and narrowed in succession, as it continued to hiss and rumble at them. It’s frontmost paws dug at the ground before it, rending the soft earth easily, while the paint-strokes on its back flashed in a mesmerizing pattern. 

It could have easily attacked them, as large as it was and as quickly as it moved it could have easily caught them off guard - and it still could, Keith thought warily, sword held at ready in case the creature so much as shifted in their direction. He was so focused on the creature that he didn’t notice Pidge had slipped up behind him until he heard her voice.

“We’re going!” Pidge hissed, grabbing Keith’s arm with a surprisingly strong grip and pulling at him. She wasn’t doing much to budge him, and for a moment he resisted her tug, but he realized that she was right. They had to leave, now, before the odd creature before them decided they actually  _ were _ worth the effort to chase down. So he let Pidge pull him back, gaze trained on the creature until it was hidden behind the curtain of leaves once again.

The moment they were free from the bushes and back another several yards, Pidge rounded on Keith and stared him down.

“This is  _ not okay _ ,” She said sternly, one hand on her hip, the other poking a finger at his chest plate. “Do you hear me? We ran right into a...a beast thing! What if it attacked us? Huh? What if instead of just trying to scare us off it tried to eat us?”

“I know okay!” Keith didn’t back off, but he did cross his arms across his chest, sword dangling awkwardly from his hand, his eyes averted so he wouldn’t have to see that anger and disapproval in Pidge’s eyes. He was letting her down, he knew it, and he hated it, hated how he couldn’t even explain  _ why _ he was doing what he was doing.

“Why are you running off after… after nothing! I haven’t even seen the-the deer thing or whatever it is!” Pidge swung her arms out wide, frustration evident on her face. “Why do you need to follow it?”

“I don't know,” Keith snapped, half turning away so he could continue ignoring her heated look.

“Oh no mister,” She grabbed his arm, and tried to pull him back to face her again. It didn't work but she sure tried. “We are not doing this again. You're always running off without explaining yourself and sometimes it turns out fine but sometimes we end up running into a giant creature with too many teeth. It had too many teeth Keith! Why did it have so many teeth, it's illogical and they weren't even spaced properly-”

“Weren't we supposed to be tracking down this ore or whatever?” Keith interrupted, turning fully around and picking a random direction to stalk off in. Pidge let out a frustrated groan.

“Can you at least tell me why you were running around this stupid forest after the deer thing?” She called after him. 

Keith ignored her, ignored that he really didn’t have a good answer for her. Shoving aside the branches of a cerulean and orange colored bush that stood in his path, he made his way between a pair of extremely large trees, their tops lost to the misty canopy above. He tried to focus on the lightly luminescent green moss growing on their cracked bark instead of thoughts of how he'd disappointed a teammate, again. 

“Keith,” Pidge called out again with a long suffering sigh, “Just tell me. I'm not mad okay? Not really! I just want to know what it is that has you so worked up about this...this creature or animal or whatever…”

“I don't know how to explain it,” Keith admitted finally, frowning in frustration. A tangled curtain of vines had met him just beyond the trees, and he glared at them. “There's just something about it that seems different...like it doesn't belong, but at the same time it does, like it… it knows this place, but it doesn’t look like it should and- and I don’t know, I don’t know  _ why _ -”

Keith growled, slashing through the vines and pushing through the opening left behind.

His boots sank in the dirt beyond the vines, more than they had in the forest, and when he looked around he found himself on a bank of a river. The soft ground sloped gently down to the water's edge where large trees with slender branching roots grew, reminding Keith somewhat of the mangrove forests he'd read about as a kid, their vine and moss heavy branches stretching out across the river. The water was a curious shade, dappled with shadows and flickering between colors that Keith couldn't quite place. A bit of blue, highlights of reds and yellows from the colorful leaves and flowers above head, it looked almost magical. 

Ripples caught his attention, drew his eye to the center of the river where, amidst the splashes of color stood the snow-white deer creature he’d been following.

It's eyes were large and dark, gaze focused on him, its ears perked, and though it stood in water shoulder high it seemed unperturbed, absolutely peaceful. And he felt it again - that draw that had pulled him through the forest, but where before it was a prickling of his senses, an itch that he had to scratch, now it was something stronger, something deeper. It was like the creature was calling out to him, somehow in some way, as if it were trying to communicate with him. 

“It.” His voice wavered, sword lowering as he took in the sight before him. “It’s right there.”

There was some rustling behind him, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the deer where it stood placidly waiting.

“What?” Pidge’s voice came from close behind him. She sounded puzzled, the last hint of frustration still tinting her words. “ _ What's _ right there…”

He saw her come to as top next to him from the corner of his eyes, and though he couldn't see her face, he could hear the awe in her voice as she breathed a quiet and awed, “Oh”.

For a moment they stood there on the river bank, watching the deer as the deer watched them. The sounds of the forest surrounded them; calls of creatures echoed above, odd warbles and croaks and beeps that trickled through the branches down to them, and he river flowed gently past, the soft whisper of its passage just barely noticeable.. 

“So it's real,” Pidge said after a moment, her voice low and soft in awe. “I take back the whole hallucination thing.”

Keith made noise in reply, eyes narrowing to focus on the deer. It still felt like it was calling him, like it was reaching out to him, and as he eyed it it moved, head bobbing slightly as it took a step back in the water.

“I think…” He hesitated, even as he felt a tug at the center of his being, as if the deer were pulling on a string connected somewhere inside of him. “I think it wants me to follow it.”

“That's what you've been doing anyways,” Pidge said, though there was no snark in her voice, not even a hint of sarcasm. He glanced over to find her eyeing the deer curiously, brow slightly furrowed, like she was deep in thought. “Maybe you should just...keep doing it?”

“And run headfirst into danger again?” Keith asked, eyebrow raising. 

Pidge turned to him, a cheeky grin on her face.

“Well, I'll be here to drag you out of it so-” She said cheerfully, slapping his back. “Go on!”

So Keith  _ goes on _ , walking down the bank and stepping into the river while the deer watched him come. 

The current was stronger than he'd expected from watching the creature - it tugged at his legs once he was a few feet deep, and he was forced to let his bayard flash back to his hip, finding himself far too clumsy with sword in hand. The deer waited patiently, ears swiveling now and then but otherwise standing perfectly still as Keith neared. It was a little unfair, Keith thought, that the creature could stand in the water with such ease and poise while he felt like he couldn’t get a good footing no matter how hard he tried.

A few feet further the water was up to his waist, pulling and tugging at him fitfully. It really wasn't his element; it was taking quite some effort to keep himself steady on the slippery muddy bottom of the river. He had to walk with his arms held out for balance, each step he took feeling like it might be the one that sent him slipping and falling in. But he managed to make his way to the deer, pausing a couple feet away from it finally. Slowly, he reached out a hand to to it. The deer eyed him a moment longer before reciprocating the movement, elegant neck curving as its muzzle reached out. It sniffed at the offered hand with a twitching nose, once, twice - then, suddenly, pulled its head away and took a step back.

“Uh…” Keith watched it, confused, wondering if he'd done something wrong. The deer was still watching him pointedly, and when its gaze met his it took a very slow and deliberate step back.

“Move Keith!” Pidge called from the bank of the river.

“What?” 

“It wants you to follow it, right? So follow it!”

Keith considered it for a moment, but quickly agreed that Pidge’s suggestion made sense - and just as quickly moved ahead. The deer seemed to be excited by that, it's tail popping up wetly to curl in a sopping wet puff over its back. It stepped backwards towards the far bank a couple more paces, for once looking awkward, lacking some of the grace it had had on land. Once it saw that Keith was following, however, it turned around and moved towards the far back, no longer looking back at him.

The far bank was rocky and sharply sloped, set higher than the one Keith had left, and the rocks themselves glinted wetly in the beams of sunlight that managed to cut through the canopy. The deer climbed up nimbly, hooves tapping against the stone as it climbed, but Keith had a much harder time of it. His gloved hands slipped as he tried to get a handhold, and his muddy boots refused to get a good grip, the soles tearing away at the moss that grew along the edges of the rocks. He gritted his teeth, refusing to be done in by inanimate objects, and put more effort into hauling himself up the bank.

“Keith!” Pidge’s voice reached him halfway up the bank, loud and excited. He didn’t dare pause in his climb or look back, uncertain that he’d even be able to without wiping out, but thankfully Pidge didn’t seem to want to wait for a reply, her voice picking up again almost immediately.

“Keith! The signal - there was a beeping but I thought it was one of those flying things but it was my tablet - the sensors! They're picking up large amounts of the ore!”

Shoving himself over the top of the bank finally, Keith spared a glance towards the far side of the river to see Pidge waving her tablet in the air, a huge grin on her face.

“Really? Is it somewhere nearby?” Keith called back, standing up carefully on the top stone. He could Pidge’s face fall, and she looked at her tablet with a frown.

“I don't know, the reading is strong but it still can’t pinpoint it...it's somewhere in that direction though,” Pidge said, waving her hand towards where he stood.

A tapping caught Keith's attention, and though Pidge had continued talking he turned his attention away. Ahead of him, several paces down the stone littered path between the tree trunks the deer stood, one delicate hoof poised in the air as if it were readying it to tap on a stone again. Seeing it had caught his attention, the creature turned again, trotting ahead and out of view around a trunk. 

Keith followed without hesitation, moving as quickly as he could. Turning the corner he fully expected the deer to have pulled another one of it's “you've barely seen me” tricks from before. But no, it was there, standing at the base of a massive boulder that was overgrown with vines and moss. It was huge, towering over him and nearly reaching the tree canopy dozens of feet above head. The deer flicked it's ears, nodding its head at him before pointedly tapping a hoof against the boulder. 

“What is that?” Keith said, more to himself than to the deer, as he approached. This time the deer didn’t dash away, though it didn’t watch him either. It turned its head to the boulder instead, nibbling at a vine that crossed its surface. Maybe it was hungry, Keith thought, as he stopped in front of the towering mass of stone. He reached out a hand to brush aside a vine, revealing a pale surface, mottled with pastel blues and purples on a background of milky white. As he brushed his fingers along a swirl, a powdery substance coated his glove, and he pulled his hand away to look at it curiously.

“Keith!”

Pidge called from the path behind him, and he turned to see her rounding the turn, grin wide on her face and eyes shining. 

“Keith, the sensors are going _wild_ , it has to be somewhere close-” She cut off with a gasp, eyes shooting to the boulder before them. The tablet in her hand was beeping wildly, and Keith could see the sensor light flashing green on the screen. “I… I think that’s it!”  
“What’s it?” Keith asked, frowning. Pidge laughed, coming over to put a hand on the surface he’d exposed from beneath the vines.

“This,  _ this  _ is it. The ore!” Pidge grinned. “I think it’s even more than we need. Way more.”

“The deer, do you think it…” Keith began, turning back towards where the deer had stood only to find the spot empty. There were no marks on the ground, and the only evidence the creature could have been there was the nibbled vine that hung loosely on the boulders surface. “It’s gone!”

“Again?” Pidge looked around, spinning to take in their surroundings. “It does  _ not _ like sticking around for long, does it?” 

Keith stepped away from the boulder, walking to the far edge of it to peek around its side. The spaces between the trees and bushes was empty, no flashes of white on the edge of his sight, no puffed tail to follow.

“You thinking about trying to find it?” Pidge asked as he stood there, peering into the forest depths. Keith thought a moment on the answer - he was a bit let down, that the creature had left so silently and so quickly again, disappeared as if it had never been, but… but there was no call, this time. No tug inside him, no need to chase the wild unknown.

And so, he replied honestly, “No.”

“No?”

“I think this is what it wanted from me,” Keith said as he returned to stand next to Pidge. “Maybe it knew this is what we were looking for?”

“So it led us on a wild goose-chase through the forest, all to help us find the ore?” Pidge asked skeptically.

“I mean,” Keith shrugged, “Why else would we end up  _ here _ ?” 

“True....” Pidge admitted, though he could tell she wasn’t quite completely convinced. Still, she grinned at him, nudging her shoulder against his arm. “It looks like your impulsive decisions turned out alright for us this time.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Keith said with a laugh, grinning back. After a moment he noticed something, and as his brows furrowed he asked, “Pidge? Why aren’t you wet?”

“Oh, I flew over to this bank,” She said, shrugging. Seeing Keith’s confused look, she motioned to her back and added. “Jet packs.”

“Jet packs,” Keith said evenly, his skin already starting to itch within the confines of his soaking wet undersuit. 

“Yeah, the jet packs on our suits?” Pidge chuckled as Keith’s brows furrowed further and his frown deepened, his arms crossing. “To be fair, I think if you’d used  _ your _ jetpack, it might’ve been cheating. Also, the deer thing might not have been expecting it and it might have spooked it, so…”

For a moment longer Keith kept frowning, long enough that Pidge’s amused look turned somewhat sheepish - but he couldn’t hold it long. He couldn’t stay irritated, not when the ridiculous traipse through the forest he’d led them on in pursuit of the deer had turned out so well. Not when, this time, his impulsivity hadn’t ended up making things  _ worse _ . 

“Next time,” he said, smile breaking across his face. “Maybe I’ll remember about the jet packs.”

Pidge laughed in response, nudging him with her shoulder as she stepped past to start scanning the boulder. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I would absolutely LOVE to hear what you think!


End file.
